Essential Reading

by
Eyewitness Guides

GUIDEBOOK

2014

PAPER

272 PAGES

This superb guide features color photography, dozens of excellent maps and a district-by-district synopsis of the celebrated city's attractions. Handsome, convenient and up-to-date, this is the guide to carry. (CZH01, $25.00)

by
Frederic Morton

HISTORY

1980

PAPER

340 PAGES

A portrait of Vienna at the end of the 19th century, this book focuses on Crown Prince Rudolph, his devastating suicide and the rich texture of gossip and daily life at the Habsburg Court. (AST16, $17.00)

by
Isabel Fonseca

CULTURAL PORTRAIT

1996

PAPER

322 PAGES

This marvelous portrait of the Roma, also known as the Gypsies, offers insight into their music, foods, religions and folk traditions and also examines their influential but complex relationship with Eastern Europe. (EUR09, $16.00)

by
Claudio Magris

CULTURAL PORTRAIT

2008

PAPER

416 PAGES

FAVORITE

Mixing history, personalities and literature, Magris traces the course of the Danube from its source in the heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire through the Balkans to the Black Sea in this anything but conventional travelogue, first published in 1986. (EUR58, $17.00)

by
Andrew Wheatcroft

by
Patrick Leigh Fermor

TRAVEL NARRATIVE

2005

PAPER

384 PAGES

BEST SELLER

Fermor effortlessly interweaves anecdote, history and culture in this exuberant account of a walk from Holland, up the Rhine and down the Danube, through Germany, Prague and Austria in 1933. Written not in the moment, but 40 years later, the accumulation of time and experience gives the book particular poignancy. (CEU30, $16.95)

by
Franz Kafka

by
Joseph Roth
|
Joachim Neugroschel

LITERATURE

2002

PAPER

331 PAGES

Magnificently set against the backdrop of the twilight of the Habsburg Empire, Roth's family saga takes in the sweep of history and empire in Central Europe. The richly textured novel opens at the battle of Solferino, when young Lieutenant Trotta saves the life of the Emperor. (AST17, $16.95)

by
Graham Greene

LITERATURE

1992

PAPER

157 PAGES

A haunting tale and penetrating portrait of Vienna after World War II, "The Third Man" is the result of Greene's collaboration with Carol Reed on the classic movie. "The Fallen Idol" is a separate tale of intrigue set in Britain. (AST30, $15.00)

by
Milan Kundera

LITERATURE

1999

PAPER

320 PAGES

Kundera's intriguing novel, praised for its meditations on the nature of men and women, and on the fearful emptiness of life in Prague under Communist rule. We also carry Kundera's collection of short stories The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. (CZH16, $15.99)

by
Donald Daviau

ANTHOLOGY

2008

PAPER

256 PAGES

Organized by neighborhood, these 15 alluring tales introduce both the city and its writers, including Arthur Schnitzler, Robert Musil, Stefan Zweig and even Franz Kafka, who had a long and complicated association with the city. (AST94, $14.95)

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